Let’s start with the positives. We have within the Department for Education an able and committed, well-led team who, despite political pressures, delivered their strategy on time, co-constructed with students and stakeholders. This helpful starting point should now be embedded in the operating frameworks of enthusiastic regulators including Ofsted and FE Commissioner. The climate emergency issue dominates young people’s thinking and is overwhelmingly at the top of their concerns, and without urgent holistic action at scale and pace, it will continue to give rise to unacceptable levels of eco-anxiety in our current and future students.
The strategy is not as challenging as many in FE desired and does not go far enough for many of our students and stakeholder partners. Critically its success will largely depend on whether Treasury quickly and efficiently commit significant levels of capital investment and resources, including trained technical expertise, to make it happen and meet the needs of our ambitious sector. Retrofitting the entire FE estate, and supporting innovative new builds, fit to deliver the exciting green skills agenda that FE can deliver will need that commitment and quickly.
Will GCSE Natural History meet the curriculum need? I think not. The FE version of the Carbon Literacy Project, widely used in many FE Colleges after the very successful Brighton Colleges Pilot in 2021, could be more helpful in meeting student needs. FE chairs, many senior leadership team members, staff, and thousands of our students have completed this one day of learning, and are now carbon literate. Colleges have often embedded this learning in tutorial programmes to great benefit for their staff and learners.
its success will largely depend on whether Treasury quickly and efficiently commit significant levels of capital investment and resources
However, what we really need from every exam board and Ofqual is to ensure real high-quality climate change, sustainability and biodiversity education is embedded in every FE curriculum pathway, academic and vocational, at every level, including SEND and level 5. This values-led curriculum, co-constructed with our students, must be supported by meaningful high-quality teaching and learning resources, by confident and well-trained staff. In 2021, Education and Training Foundation research suggests fewer than one in 200 FE students have access to such provision in A-Level geography and on science courses. Very few colleges beyond the AoC Beacon award finalists (South Devon, and South West College in Northern Ireland) can offer such opportunities to ALL their students.
FE colleges and boards are very enthusiastic in responding to the strategy. Over 180 college boards signed the AoC Green Commitment, and over 200 have adopted and adapted the FE roadmap produced by the AoC and Nous Group and have strategic plans and internal action groups. The best have collaborative groups working on in this sustainability/green skills space (e.g., every Brighton and Sussex college), and are working effectively with other FE colleges and HE partners, local schools, employers, local enterprise partnerships, and local authorities.
Two years ago, our sector was way behind our Scottish FE partners and the HE and schools sector. Now we have over 80 per cent of AoC colleges actively engaged and ambitious to deliver for our communities, students, and to meet national green skills needs. In late July, the AoC will launch Beyond the FE Roadmap – a new suite of tools to further help colleges prioritise their work and actions, following successful pilots at South Devon College, Weston College and New City College.
Bill Gates argued that all jobs will be green jobs and that the challenge of the climate emergency will make the pandemic look easy, easy, easy. It will certainly need collaborative holistic action at scale and pace, and our FE sector is ideally placed to do this across the four nations, given the necessary investment.